Dear Evangelicals, Your Problem Isn’t That You Need A New LABEL for Your Movement Post-Roy Moore and Trump–You Need to Stop Believing In Stupid Things!

Both the New York Times and Washington Post have front-page headlines about how evangelical leaders now want to change the name “Evangelical” to something else post-Moore/Trump. My point is that the label isn’t the problem, it is the beliefs.

Call it what you want but fundamentalist faith, including anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Muslim “absolutes” isn’t going to change perceptions of itself by taking on another name. Here’s a Tweet I just wrote about that:

Dear Evangelicals, Your problem isn’t the discredited post-Trump/Moore label “Evangelical.” Your problem is a literal belief system in stupid nonsense. That’s what leaves you open to following moron pastors & moron political leaders. You need truth-based beliefs- not new labels. pic.twitter.com/Fhl4eVodFs

Having thrown away the gospel as it were on Trump, the leadership like Christianity Today magazine editor Mark Galli, is trying to change names without changing beliefs. This is like thinking that calling woman abuse “correction” instead of “beating,” fixes it.

Gerson point out that Roy Mooreism was distilled Trumpism, flavored with some self-righteous moralism- in other words the essence of the white evangelical movement, whatever it calls itself!
What makes white American evangelicals the way they are and prepares them to support Trump or Moore? Aggressive ignorance, racial divisiveness, the disdain for governing, the contempt for truth: As in “The Bible is true- climate science is not!”

What is wrong with evangelicals that they voted for Roy Moore let alone Trump? Here’s a hint: the trashing of America in favor of Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay “morality”, the conspiracy theories, the sheer, destabilizing craziness of the average TV preacher.

Trump is not an evangelical aberration but the logical extension of centuries of folly. His white evangelical admirers are not just putting forth a new agenda; they are littering the civic arena with deception and cruelty. They are pro-billionaire and anti-child. They must be sent back to the Dark Ages in 2018.

As my friend Jeffrey Sodini, wrote to me in an email:

…The prominent American evangelical publication, Christianity Today, came out this week (See “The Biggest Loser in the Alabama Election” by Mark Galli) with a somewhat critical editorial admonishing Moore as well as those conservative Christians who gladly jumped on the Donald Trump band wagon.
That’s good. But wait a minute…they waited an awfully long time to point out the obvious.
Unfortunately, they were also quite critical of both secular and religiously left-leaning Christians who were apparently not understanding enough of their conservative mindset. This is a cop-out in my opinion and plays to the “persecution complex” syndrome- a canard used too often in the evangelical world.

On the other hand I suppose it must have been difficult for Christianity Today to do this piece in the first place since many evangelical organizations are funded by wealthy donors, who like Roy Moore, want to “Make America Great Again,” (in God’s image as they see it.) The DeVos family in Michigan, yes including Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos along with her brother Erik Prince of Blackwater fame, throw their wealth to organizations such as Tony Perkin’s Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, Dobson’s Focus on the Family, as well as the Michigan and National Republican Party. Some tally the amount over 200 million dollars over the years.

White evangelical leaders like Mark Galli have already discredited even the good causes they claim to care about. Clinging to the theology of “the lost” and hell, they are condemning the country to durable social division.

In Trump’s GOP, loyalty requires corruption. In evangelical theology belief requires you become a self-willed judgmental moron who, like Galli, is convinced the problem lies not in your own stupid beliefs but in being misunderstood by liberals. It was ever thus from the time someone said “Scientists may say… but the Bible is truth so science is wrong!”

Trump has crossed line after line of decency and ethics with only scattered evangelical bleats of protest. Most white evangelicals like the GOP’s complicit leadership remains in loud silence.
The restoration of the Republican Party will require Republicans to lose elections. The restoration of Christianity will require white evangelical churches and organizations like Christianity Today magazine, to collapse.

This is what reformation for Republicans will look like: humbling repeated defeats. And recovery will be found only on the other side of loss for evangelicals too, whatever they call themselves. When their churches are empty and their young people are gone, just maybe then Jesus’ teaching might have a chance again- to touch and change lives.

Put it this way: It’s not the label or PR outreach failures that cripple evangelicals today– it’s the theology, stupid!

As I’ve stated before, Schaeffer’s biggest complaint is that Christians believe the Bible, which Schaeffer regards as untrue. Anyone who claims to believe the Bible is regarded by Schaeffer as a threat to what Frank believes is true. The only way Christians can please Schaeffer is to stop being Christians. And become what he is.

Regardless of what Frank Schaeffer’s personal views might be, his contention here is not that Christians are behaving like Christians but that their support for people like Trump and Moore puts them squarely at odds with the moral principles they have historically claimed to hold. Ad hominem attacks distract from the message by finding fault with the messenger.

Bryson … he’s been convicted and jailed twice on anti discrimination charges … brought up multiple times for harassment and abuse … is by his own actions a demented old fool … and is anything but a christian … Biblical or otherwise

You’re full of s**t Bryson . You did no such thing . Cause if you had .. the most immediate one to come up would be the two federal convictions and jail terms in regards to his disregarding the Constitutional rights and mandates of the courtroom

And as I’ve stated multiple times … you do not have a clue what Frank is saying or thinking …because you READ INTO Franks words and videos what you want to hear and see .. rather than read and listen to what he’s actually saying

That… and the fact that you are unwilling and afraid to face the truth about that which you’re trying to represent .

And ahhh …. Bryson … if you want a modicum of civility to continue with our ‘ discussions ‘as it has since earlier today ……. drop the damn sock puppets once and for all … along with any racial slurs or derogatory comments towards Ms Abadie … etc … otherwise … Brys**t becomes a permanent fixture and the game is back on full force .

Martin, I know exactly what Frank means because he said it very clearly in this video. You can’t miss it, if you watch the video, which I did. Frank does not believe the Bible and hates anyone who does. And he proves it over and over.

I don’t do “sock puppets”, as I’ve told you before. I say what I want to say under my own name. I can’t help it if you are delusional.

Speaking as an artist…
We like to bum around in comfortable, ragged clothing when we are at home – at least when we are working on projects. This way, if we get paint on ourselves, it’s no big deal to get paint on something ragged. I am fond of an old pale blue button-up shirt I got at at thrift store specifically for the purpose of painting in that… used to be blue, now it’s a rainbow. Not all of us purchase professional “painting smocks” – many of us use just old clothes we have on hand that would otherwise be discarded.

Much like children who play outside have “play clothes” – we artists tend to, too. You don’t dress up fancy or even in “basic going out clothes” to paint, and if you’re sharing something candid and casual in your most comfortable setting (your art room), well… to expect the guy to dress up fancy just for you… Feh.

In the above video, Frank Schaeffer summarizes his beliefs, which are completely and absolutely unchristian. Frank does not believe anything written in the Bible. He does not believe in the God of the Bible. He does not believe in Jesus Christ. Don’t believe me? Watch the video. Frank’s problem with Christians is that they are Christians instead of pagans, like him.

Mr Bryson, as I see it, Frank’s problem is with fundamentalist evangelicals who believe in a literal hell and who, like the pharisees, condemn people who do not follow the letter of their law. If that is your definition of a Christian, I agree, Frank isn’t one.

Like Frank I admire many of the teachings of Jesus and I wish the evangelical followers of Jesus were more Christ-like.

John, You mean you like Jesus saying that unbelievers are going to Hell? He did. Do you like that Jesus confirmed that God made everything in six days? He did that too. You can’t pick and choose what you like that Jesus said but reject what he said that you don’t like. It doesn’t work that way.

1) Jesus did not confirm that God created the world in six 24 hour days . that is a heresy and a lie . He confirmed that God created the world in six .. epochs or ages ( read the original languages ).. as clearly stated in Genesis ( again in the original language ) … which in God’s scheme of things can mean most any period of time too large to count …

2) You are as if not more guilty of reading picking and choosing what you want to believe than anyone here … including Frank at his worst .

And you’re right … it does not work that way . Yet that is the way you chose to try and make it work .

Not if you read the Bible in its original languages it doesn’t … not to mention a decent translation … which the KJV/KJB most definitely is not

Fact is Bryson ( civility remains till you’ve read my warning ) … the word used in both the OT and NT is best translated as … epoch .. or in the more common vernacular … age .. not 24 hour day for which there is a specific word … which is not used in either .

Loosen the bonds of wickedness,
Undo the bands of the yoke,
Let the oppressed go free,
Break every yoke!

Then there was v. 7 and that stuff about sharing bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked and the like.

So I wonder … what’s crazy old Isaiah actually trying to pull? Is Isaiah saying:

‘Drive everyone like Pharaoh 6 days a week,
but undo that whole social order one day in seven?

OR, does Isaiah mean to say that the Sabbath God desires really means…
A just society … where just social relations prevail …
And a minimal social vision ensuring that all truly needed care is received?

How we answer that has enormous implications for us and our society!

There’s more.

Ex 20 does indeed base the Sabbath on creation: ‘in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth … v11.’ However in Deut 5:15 the Sabbath rationale is changed from creation to redemption. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt! Remember that Yahweh brought you out of there! Therefore Yahweh commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

Again, I think it matters profoundly whether we limit our understanding of Sabbath to creation, or broaden it to include the deliverance/liberation/salvation from Egypt. God may have reached into Egypt to draw out his people with a might hand and outstretched arm. But we seem much better at taking our mighty hand and arm and pushing folk into Egypt.

I think Deut 5:15 plus Isa 58 makes a good case for a ‘just society/just social relations’ reading of the Sabbath. In that case, this isn’t about Sabbath practice as much as it is all of life.

The Bible may say that Jesus said non-believers go to hell. But none of the writers of the bible were even around to hear Jesus say that. We have no idea what Jesus did or did not say. We only have writers who are writing what they want to write.

“Most white Alabama voters voted for Roy Moore, and almost all darkie Alabama voters voted for Doug Jones. Without the negro vote, Jones would not have won. Once again, negores have proven to be a liability rather than an asset.”

“To all the women who voted for Jones: abortion will improve your life dramatically.”

And no… He is not Frank’s sockpuppet. He is just an ugly racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, homophobic old fart, claiming to be a devout Christian when he is, in fact, anything but … who has been posting the exact same hate-filled rhetoric on this blog as he was back in 2015 on one of his many FB pages.https://www.facebook.com/gary.bryson.35

Margarita, I don’t do Facebook, though I do have an account.
You have proven that you don’t believe anything Jesus Christ said. Neither do you care what he said, or what he might think now. Your pretending you do is nothing but hypocrisy. And, you are not qualified to judge whether someone else is a Christian. You don’t even know what a Christian in supposed to be.

Oh… Look! Gory is once again deflecting from the obvious. That being, that if Jesus could hear Gory’s maleficent hate-filled rhetoric written on his behalf… He might very well knock his teeth down his lying throat.

Well… Let’s see… Ah… Yes! For starters… That hating homosexual, African Americans, people of other faiths to the point of wishing them dead, and being pro African American abortions constitutes being a “Good and devout Christian.”

Margarita, I should not wish anyone were dead. But, it is true that those who will never become Christians would be better off if they were dead, since the longer they live, the more sins they commit and the greater will be their eternal punishment. Now I didn’t invent that system, God did. So if you have a problem with it, you should complain to the God of the Bible.

Ahhh … Brys**t .. hate to be the bearer of bad news … but according to the words of Paul … you’re living in sin each and every day of your miserable little child life despite Christ’s forgiveness . Not only that … but again according to the words of Paul …

As for Roy Moore… Here is a list of his many… MANY fact checked transgressions:

In the summer of 2003, Moore, then Alabama’s elected chief justice, refused to remove a 5,280-pound granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments. This was a blatant violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution, as a federal district court soon held. A federal appellate court affirmed the lower court’s judgment. Moore didn’t ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. Instead, he announced he would not follow the ruling.
And while there are some Christians who insist that moral law can only be derived from the KJB; the supremacy clause specifically says that the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land” and that “the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

After the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 gay-marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, he used his position as chief justice to direct the state’s probate court judges not to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. This was a replay of constitutional defiance. The Supreme Court had spoken, but Moore purported to be countermanding its commands in the name of Alabama’s right to interpret the Constitution differently. Moore is a lawyer and judge who believes that he, not the U.S. Supreme Court, should have the last word on what is lawful.
Moore had ordered Alabama probate judges not to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling. He declared Obergefell “manifestly absurd and unjust … contrary to reason and divine law … not entitled to precedential value.”

Almost as shamelessly—and just as baselessly, Moore asserted that certain communities in the United States are already operating under Sharia law. When pressed for details, he flailed around for a second or two (“Well, there’s Sharia law, as I understand it, in Illinois, Indiana—up there. I don’t know”) before pooh-poohing the very concept of facts. “Well, let me just put it this way—if they are, they are; if they’re not, they’re not. That doesn’t matter.” Indeed, Moore has made painfully clear that facts do not matter to him. Neither does he feel compelled to respect laws with which he disagrees. (He answers to a higher power, you see.)

He falsely said Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen. Moore was one of the many voices in the chorus of the “birther” movement — people who wrongly believe that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Although there is absolutely nothing in our Constitution regarding Islam, or for that matter Christianity nor Jesus… Moore lied saying that: “False religions like Islam who teach that you must worship this way are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for.”

Moore also lied, when he denied ever knowing Beverly Young Nelson. Which was, in fact, proven false via him signing her yearbook.

You got that right Gory. No way in hell would I ever support Roy Moore, who like you believes that an interracial relationship is sinful, and against the teaching of Jesus. Meanwhile, Gory, being that you are so obsessed with other people’s sexual lives… May I ask how your sex life has been doing lately? Oh… But wait, you are not getting any! Which, of course, would answer why you hate all those who have healthy and loving relationships.

You can ask, but its none of your business. But I know a bit about yours from your volunteering information. Don’t be too sure your relationship with your boy is healthy. And given that YOU are involved, its probably not loving either.

So one last final time Bryson … care to take me up on the most reasonable and honorable offer I’ve made ?

To reiterate .. you don’t have to admit to anything ( but you damn well better not deny it either ) .. but all ya’s gotta do is to start acting replying and commenting in a civil and responsible manner … especially towards the woman … and … miraculously make the Simone – Diana Marie – Courtney sock puppets on ice show simply fade into the virtual relegation bin … And … poof ! Voila … Brys**t and the phalanx of threats , insults and consequences from my end suddenly disappear as well

Your choice . Play nice … or deal with the consequences … ALL of them .

Oh really closet boy ? And just who have I expressed hatred towards in any of my comments or replies ? Ehhh ?

Sorry s**t for brains … but the answer is no one and never . Not even towards you … despite the fact that you are nothing but a pathologically lying troll complete with sock puppets

Cause ahhh …. dumb**s … if I did hate you … I wouldn’t waste my precious time trying to set your lying **s straight … I’d just leave you on the direct road to hell you chosen to remain on while ignoring the narrow path beside you .

” LOL! All your comments are is hatred! Nothing else. You are really stupid!!!”

Reverting to our ten year old self child ? And ahhh .. suffice it to say … Projecting … which is what you’re doing … is a definite sign of mental derangement . Not to mention the LOL thing being the actions of s little girl .

And ahhh … your ability to communicate in English seems to be slipping … e.g. ” … are is hatred “

So please explain, Gory… If your sex life is nobody’s business, as in what you do in the seclusion and privacy of your own bedroom is between you and god; then what gives you the right to be poking your nose into other people’s sex lives and passing judgment? Are you the god sex police?

I believe you are the one who volunteered that you had a black boyfriend, so its obvious you are having sex with him. As I told you before, I don’t care who you have sex with. Its all right with me if you have sex with anyone who will agree to have sex with you. I don’t have to be around you, so it really does not matter to me.

Yes! Gory… My partner IS Black. And since you keep saying that you don’t care who I have sex with… Why are you still obsessing about my sex life? Could it be that you just can’t control the angst and fear you feel over the idea that I might produce bi-racial children, and thus “pollute” (as you would have it) the “purity” of the White race?

Yes! Gory… I am very white. Must be such a thorn up your arse that an African American man was able to seduce a white woman with his kindness, compassion, artistic talents, goodwill, generosity, good spirit, great sense of humor, contagious laughter, cheerful disposition, outgoing and affectionate personality, warmth of character, to go along with his exceptional intelligence, moral integrity, his extraordinary good looks, and his remarkable athletic prowess. Truth be told, I feel as if I am the luckiest woman on earth to have such a wonderful man love me with all his heart and soul. Oh! And just in case you are wondering… He is the very essence of masculinity! Which I must confess, I am irresistibly attracted to, not just in a sensual context, but more importantly, because he makes me feel so safe and protected…

Goodness Gracious! You are reacting as if my being in an interracial relationship is akin to bestiality! Get a grip on yourself and stop being so obsessed with other peoples sex lives, where you have absolutely no business poking your creepy nose into. I get, that you fantasize about being an inquisitor for the god’s secret sex police service, and would probably love to torture me so as to make me confess to all forms of depravity, and then have me burned at the stake so that I can get a taste of what awaits me in hell. Too bad for you that interracial relationships are legal in this country and even sanctioned by most churches.

We all know what Brys**t does in the seclusion of his own bedroom stuffed in the back of his parents house .

He fantasizes about Roy Moore . Steve Bannon and Trump … hoping one of them will ‘ switch ‘ sides ‘ ( although in Trump’s case all bets are he already has ) and make a pass or two at him … which of course he’ll accept .. for a fee 😉

” “That’s been the playbook in our government for so long: distract, disrupt, hurt, bash, defame, do whatever you can for your own political gain. It’s sad that we don’t have more morals or character or whatever it is.”
—Eric Trump

The very pinnacle and epitome of stupidity , hypocrisy and pathological lies … proving once again that the Apple seldom falls far from the tree

Frank Schaeffer wants all Christians to discard their religion and beliefs and adopt Frank’s beliefs. Listen to what he says in the video. Frank believes that his beliefs are true, and that those who believe the Bible are a danger to him and his family, as well as to American society. He believes that those who believe the Bible are insane. He believes that people in their right mind reject the Bible as truth and consider it to be fantasy and myth. So for Frank, this is war. He believes humanity itself cannot survive if Christians are allowed to exist in their present numbers because they have too much power and influence on the government and on society. And his beliefs drive everything he does.

No Gory! If you’d only listen to what Frank said, he specifically referred to the aggressive, ignorant, divisive, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, isolationist, cult-like White American evangelicals who’s contempt for truth has degenerated Jesus’s teachings of love and peace … and instead replaced those teachings with hatred, malice, prejudice, fear, punishment, and utter contempt for all that is good, kind, and beautiful. Including, but not limited to advocating for torture, adherence via the threat of going to hell and burning for eternity, and the killing of unborn Black children whom they have clearly deemed to be a liability to this country, as per your own words. Again, if you’d only read/listen to what he has said, not once (as in not a single time) has he denounced any of the roughly 40 other Christian denominations.

Yeah… Yeah… Yeah… Look who is talking about supporting abortion! He who posted the this: “To all the women who voted for Jones: abortion will improve your life dramatically.” and then followed up with this: “Margarita, I should not wish anyone were dead. But, it is true that those who will never become Christians would be better off if they were dead, since the longer they live, the more sins they commit and the greater will be their eternal punishment. Now I didn’t invent that system, God did. So if you have a problem with it, you should complain to the God of the Bible.” Your words! Not Frank’s…

You think abortion is murder? Your liberal friends won’t like that. But, you are right, abortion is the murder of an unborn child. That’s why its immoral and unconstitutional. But, it still has some benefits. Women who have abortions are wicked. If they had the child instead of killing it, they would raise it to be wicked, like they are. We have an oversupply of wicked people already. So it benefits society for wicked women to not reproduce.

That you have deluded yourself to such an extent that you are certain that only those who follow your despotic beliefs are God’s chosen people, and that all other Christians and people of other faiths will burn in hell for eternity … is proof positive for the rest of us, that it is you and your kind who are in fact “littering the civic arena with deception, cruelty, AND insanity!”

And Yes! You better believe that it is a “war” (if you will) of love and peace vs. hatred, cruelty, and insanity! And it’s not about not allowing you folks to exists, as much as it’s about not allowing you folk to have the power to persecute, condemn, incarcerate, and even kill … those who do not subscribe to you derranged doctrine of hatred and cruelty!

Gary… It is you who hates Black, homosexuals, Muslims, Christians of other denominations, people of other faiths, foreigners, women who are not subservient to men, and all who didn’t vote for the degenerate gun toting racist/misogynist Roy Moore. Fact is, you are so blinded by hatred, that you have lost all concept of what love and peace is…

Gory… Gaslighting won’t work on me. You have admitted to hating enough groups of people that together add up to billions … the sheer staggering numbers of which, confirm that you are certifiably consumed by hatred.

That you keep repeating more than 100 times and counting that all those who are not fundamentalist Christians and who don’t believe in the KJB (the most corrupt and mistranslated version of them all) and instead chose to read other bibles WILL burn in Hell for eternity, is nothing more than a figment of your sick convictions, which thankfully have no bearing on reality whatsoever. Sorry, but the known world and the entire Cosmos was not created in only six 24hours days, nor is the earth flat and only about 6,000 years old… And God is not a despotic and sadistic being who’d burn billions upon billions of good and caring people, just because they do not worship him as mandated in the KJB. That you can’t see that God is love and instead chose to paint him/her/it in the image of a narcissistic vengeful Satan, just goes to prove how absolutely bonkers you are.

God is as He is described in the Bible. The God of the Bible is not the god you believe in. Since you don’t believe the Bible, how do you know what the god you believe in is like? How do you know what your god has done, or what it has said?

I was blessed with extraordinary teachers and professors whose passions were/are an emphasis on discernment and critical thinking. In fact, the first thing they taught me was to question everything. As in: “Reason is the ultimate appeal.”

As such, and given my own experiences with prayer, I know that faith in what is good and loving as opposed to what is cruel and hateful is the bearer of the highest inspiration of Heaven. And that through this faith we shall experience in our own souls, the miracles of redemption and grace.

Margarita, Would it be fair to say that your theology is something you arrived at yourself through your own experiences that were subjected to your own “reason”?
You think this god you believe in has a Heaven? Why would you need redemption or grace? Does your god have a name?

Religion is permitted only in the form of local communities who share a secular government based upon a set of universal law that all agree upon. Just as the non religious are included in that civil government and now we live in a time of great ignorance and a media our forth estate compromised by moneyed powers such as four corporations control all media now as in 10 corporations now control all food production as in a few corporations control all car manufacturing so we are hardly free…

The republican and democratic parties are just the left and right wing of the same dirty bird …..”

I will just copy and paste my last comment from the other post.

Government is secular.

Our founders distrusted all Churches and broke free from them and so this is America.
Deal with it as you shall be out voted…

Margarite, Yes, no theocracy. And yet most laws are either moral or immoral as judged by God’s moral standards revealed in the Bible. For example: laws prohibiting theft are moral, but a law legalizing same-sex marriage is immoral.

No Bryson … the moral standards used to govern are based on the common grace / general revelation seared into the hearts of all men and women … all of which are Gods creation irrespective of their having the Bible … or not

God has said adultery and fornication are immoral, as recorded in the Bible. But there are plenty of people who don’t believe those things are immoral. What happened to the morals seared into their hearts?

” God has said adultery and fornication are immoral, as recorded in the Bible. But there are plenty of people who don’t believe those things are immoral. What happened to the morals seared into their hearts? ”

Good question … and one you should be asking those who you look up to .. such as Moore , Trump 60% of all pastors .. 75% of evangelicals and fundamentalists etc all of whom commit adultery rape abuse incest etc on a regular basis

But the answer is … just because you know what is right doesn’t mean you’ll do whats right regardless of your beliefs now … does it ! Romans 7;15-20

” I’m not wrong. Happily for me, all my sins have been atoned for. Not so for you ”

.. it is painfully obvious that you have not so much as admitted to your own culpability ( guilt ) never mind gone to the Throne for forgiveness . . Suffice it to say Bryson … just cause ya says yer a christian don’t by any stretch o’ the imagination .. mean you is one … and son …. by all accounts …

Wrong again Gory. While it is true that most laws are either moral or immoral, they are by no measure inspired by Divine Command Theory, or as you would put it, “judged by your god of the bible” in the USA.

To understand why this is so, let me introduce you to some concepts of moral theory and the different ways that laws are made.

A theory is a structured set of statements used to explain (or predict) a set of facts or concepts. A moral theory, then, explains why a certain action is wrong — or why we ought to act in certain ways. In short, it is a theory of how we determine right and wrong conduct. Also, moral theories provide the framework upon which we think and discuss in a reasoned way, and so evaluate, specific moral issues.

Cultural Relativism
Right and wrong are determined by the particular set of principles or rules the relevant culture just happens to hold at the time.

Divine Command Theory
Many claim that there is a necessary connection between morality and religion, such that, without religion (in particular, without God or gods) there is no morality, i.e., no right and wrong behavior. Although there are related claims that religion is necessary to motivate and guide people to behave in a morally good way, most take the claim of the necessary connection between morality and religion to mean that right and wrong come from the commands of God (or the gods). This view of morality is known as Divine Command Theory. The upshot is that an action is right — or obligatory — if God command we do it, wrong if God commands we refrain from doing it, and morally permissible if God does not command that it not be done.

Divine Command Theory is widely held to have several serious flaws. First, it presupposes that God or gods exist. Second, even if we assume that God does exist, it presupposes that we can know what God commands. But even if we accept theism, it looks like even theists should reject the theory. Plato raised the relevant objection 2500 years ago. He asked:
Is something right (or wrong) because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is right?
If the latter, then right and wrong are independent of the gods’ commands — Divine Command Theory is false. If the former, then right and wrong are just a matter of the arbitrary will of the gods (i.e., they might have willed some other, contradictory commands).
Most think that right and wrong are not arbitrary — that is, some action is wrong, say, for a reason. Moreover, that if God commands us not to do an action, He does so because of this reason, not simply because He arbitrarily commands it. What makes the action wrong, then, is not God’s commanding it, but the reason. Divine Command Theory is false again.

Utilitarianism
Right and wrong are determined by the overall goodness (utility) of the consequences of action. Utilitarianism is a Consequentialist moral theory.
Basic ideas:
All action leads to some end. But there is a summum bonum — the highest good/end. This is pleasure or happiness. Also, that there is a First Principle of Morals — ‘Principle of Utility’, alternatively called ‘The Greatest Happiness Principle’ (GHP), usually characterized as the idea of working towards the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The GHP implies that we ought to act so as to maximize human welfare (though Bentham thought we should include all sentient animals in his utilitarian calculations). We do this in a particular instance by choosing the action that maximizes pleasure/happiness and minimizing suffering.

Note: Utilitarians are not a Hedonist. Hedonists are concerned only with their own happiness. Utilitarians are concerned with everyone’s happiness, so it is Altruistic. In general, morally right actions are those that produce the best overall consequences/total amount of pleasure or absence of pain. Modern versions of Utilitarianism have dropped the idea of maximizing pleasure in favor of maximizing the satisfaction of all relevant peoples’ preferences and interests. Also, some distinguish between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism is pretty much as described above, where we make the utilitarian calculation based on the evaluation of the consequences of a single isolated act. It is thought by some that this leads to a number of significant problems — for instance, that one person may be harmed if that leads to the greatest good for everyone. To overcome these problems, some advocate Rule Utilitarianism — the view that we should adopt only those rules (for governing society) that produce the greatest good for all.

Contractarianism
The principles of right and wrong (or Justice) are those which everyone in society would agree upon in forming a social contract. Various forms of Contractarianism have been suggested. In general, the idea is that the principles or rules that determine right and wrong in society are determined by a hypothetical contract forming procedure. Here is John Rawls’s example.

Through a thought experiment, Rawls developed a way of getting people to come up with universal principles of justice. The basic idea is nothing new — i.e., of impartial developing a social contract of universal principles — but many find Rawls’ novel method very appealing. The idea is to start by thinking, hypothetically, that we are at the beginning of forming a society and we want to know which principles of justice to ground the society. However, in this ‘original position’ we do this without knowing which position we will occupy in the future society — we don’t know if we will be rich or poor, male or female, old or young, etc. We then advocate those principles that will be in our self-interest (though we don’t know what ‘self’ that will be). This forces us to be impartial, and if we are rational, to propose universal principles. The idea of the thought experiment is not to think that we actually begin again and construct a society from scratch. Rather, we can use the thought experiment as a test of actual principles of justice. If a principle is one that would not be adopted by people in the original position, behind the ‘veil of ignorance’ (about who they will be), then it is unjust and should be rejected.

[Rawls claims that people in this original position will choose conservatively when developing principles governing the distribution of benefits and burdens. This conservatism, Rawls claims, will lead to the choosing two basic principles: (1) that each member of the society should have as much liberty as possible without infringing on the liberty of others; and (2) the ‘maximin’ rule for decisions about economic justice — namely, that they will choose those rules that would maximize the minimum they would receive. In other words, make the society in which the least well-off are in the best possible position. Deviations from equality of distribution of benefits and burdens are justified only if it advantages the least well off. Rawls thought that some inequalities would be adopted because rewarding on the grounds of merit and hard work, for example, would lead to a society in which there was a greater production of social benefits, so the least well of would be better off than in a society of pure equality.]

In light of the above, while to you, being that you subscribe only to Divine Command Theory both theft and homosexuality is immoral… To me, being that I abide by Contractarianism, Cultural Relativism, and mostly by Utilitarianism, theft is immoral because it causes loss and hardship to another, but homosexuality is not immoral, being that it doesn’t damage, hurt, nor infringe on anyone else’s rights. Not that you will agree… But that is beside the point.

Well… Gory… You better pray that you are wrong because if you are right, by virtue of asking a man to put his lips on your buttocks close to your rectum (which is a big huge NO…NO in your bible), and then going as far as advocating that women should interfere with god’s plan by killing their unborn children (another gigantic NO NO in your bible) to spare them the horrors of hell that your god had planned for them … you are going against HIS will (a NO NO of epic proportions), which I am quite certain your bible has explicitly said you can’t do under any circumstances whatsoever, it would seem that you’ll be going to hell too! Your god’s rules… Not mine!

Exactly right, Nine. The Corporate State of America. The so called news is a worthless bought and paid for mess. I can’t bear to view it. I wonder if this is how it’s always been yet only now is it so glaring. I’m of the mind that a capitolist democracy will always devolve into a state of being like we are witnessing. Makes me think humans have yet to develop a workable way to govern themselves. That is other than National Socialism yet the world would not abide that system which was probably the best idea anyone has come up with.

From our American Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan on the Evangelicals as he was one in the late 70’s and early 80s as he abandoned it Just like Frank Shaeffer did and so I wish I had been blessed with such good sense!

“Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions,
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring
down
All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

I had a woman down in Alabama,
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic,
She said, “Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out,
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic.”
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

All that foreign oil controlling American soil,
Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed.
Sheiks walkin’ around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings,
Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don’t apply no more,
You can’t rely no more to be standin’ around waitin’
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin’ over in his grave,
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters,
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency,
All non-believers and men stealers talkin’ in the name of religion
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it.
They say lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions,
They talk about a life of brotherly love, show me someone who knows how to
live it. There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.

Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talkin’ boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothin’ I could do to stop it,
I don’t care about economy, I don’t care about astronomy
But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets,
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend. ”

Correction Nine .. Dylan was never an Evangelical . Not even close . He became a member of an abhorrent christian charasmaniac cult called the Vineyard Fellowship … and though on some superficial level he was a part of it for awhile … as is his Cosmic Chameleon M/O ( Dylan changes his stripes as often as you and I change our socks ) … he never full accepted it … because at its core the Vineyard was and still is a hypocritical heresy … with its leader John Wimber being the pinnacle of charismatic gnosticism in the name of the almighty dollar .

Ironically though the like of CCM etc fell for it all hook line and sinker …. and cried in their holy water when Dylan said hasta la vista

Not that that diminishes the impact of his words … but thems the facts … not the myth

And for the record …. I was there witnessing it all first hand from the stage to behind the scenes

Merry Christmas, Nine. We can’t pick our family can we? I feel like an outsider with mine as well sometimes. Many of them are devout Christians yet I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as evangelicals. What do they say about the two things we should never discuss? Politics and religion. We should stick with the weather, holiday travel, what the kids are up to these days etc..

After peering into the mind of this Gary Bryson, I must commend you for your efforts of speaking the truth about these so-called “Evangelical Christians,” which although I have always known them to be racist nutjobs, it was not until I engaged one of them directly that I came to see how truly dangerously deranged they are, and the importance of those who share such despotic beliefs, are not elected for office.

To wit, I saved parts of an article I read some few years back by an atheist that writes under the name of Daniel Fincke, whom perhaps you know of. If not, here is what he had to say about those who relish telling others that they will go to hell:

Why Atheists Resent Being Told We Are Going To Hell

Yesterday I was rather surprised that one of my very most politically progressive, most liberally theist, and most pro-atheist friends asked me why atheists sometimes get upset (even apoplectic) about being told we’re going to hell. This friend asked why this should bother us if we thought the idea that we were going to hell was complete nonsense anyway. Did this signify that the offended atheists held some residual fear that there may be a hell after all?

I cannot speak for all atheists of course. But let me speak for myself and other possible atheist mindsets.

First of all, I don’t have any residual fear of hell whatsoever. I think the idea of hell is epically preposterous and implausible. Once or twice in 13 years of being an atheist, the irrational fear based side of my brain has asked my reason to reassess the idea just to make sure–and promptly that fear has been laughed at by my reason.

Second of all, telling us we are going to hell is formally a threat and threats are inherently vicious and disturbing things—even if one does not believe they will be (or could be) carried out. And even if a given believer does not like the prospect of our going to hell and is desperately trying to warn us, they’re almost always quite happily on the side of the person they imagine is ultimately behind the threat.

Now there are many different ways that believers tell us we’re going to hell or, at least, that we deserve to if we don’t convert to their religion. The nastiest believers tell us we’re going to hell with a lot of relish and with little provocation. Just being an atheist is enough to get a contemptuous, hateful attitude from them.

Other believers tell us we’re going to hell out of passive-aggressive vindictiveness when we have irritated them. Sometimes an atheist may have merited anger by being obnoxious in an actual out of bounds way–but even in those cases that is no cause or justification for threats. And many times atheists have not rightly merited any such anger. All we have done is express our genuine opinions. Often we have even given rational philosophical or scientific arguments. Sometimes all we have done is mention that we’re atheists!

To have people respond to one’s identity statements with a threat is upsetting. To have someone respond to a philosophical or scientific discussion with a threat is upsetting. Such threats send the message that this person really does not believe in freedom of thought or humility about one’s opinions. They send the message that not only should you change what you think–which would be an okay thing to argue for–but that you must both change what you are and surrender your right to think freely or you will be tortured. Such believers convey that they are so certain of their views that they want to emotionally manipulate those who disagree by terrifying them into submission whenever they have not been convinced by arguments. (And, just to be clear, I don’t like or tolerate it when atheists resort to bullying behavior any more than I like it when theists do.)

In their decision to threaten hell sometimes believers also indicate that they are simultaneously closing their minds and smugly and happily assuring themselves that their god will get back at you for upsetting them. In those moments, atheists might think that believers want us to suffer in hell because we have pissed them off. It is bad enough that they choose to worship a being they believe sends people to disproportionately cruel, unusual, unjust, and everlasting punishment. But it is disgusting when they start identifying with, approving of, and vicariously imagining that god’s supposed plan to torture you. And it is even more insidious when their approval is motivated by their own vindictive, wounded ego because they have lost an argument or by their bigoted subconscious tribalism because you are simply not a member of their group.

Wanting anyone else to be eternally tortured is pretty creepy. Sometimes in anger, any of us may have thoughts that we’d like someone to die flash through our minds. If you’re like me, you’re horrified and repulsed in those moments. If you’re a violent and hateful person you may start making scary death threats. If you’re a Christian you may just baptize your hateful thought as “concern” for your irritant’s soul before it even becomes fully conscious. You call your resentful defensiveness “love” and by telling the atheist they’re going to hell you do several satisfying things at once. You signal to the outsider that not being a member of your tribe has penalties. You reaffirm your own good standing in your tribe and with your God as someone who is an obedient and appreciative recipient of your God’s gracious offer of salvation. You get to both tell someone off and call it love. You get to count yourself one of the special insiders while feeling yourself a properly humble worshipper.

But worst of all you do all this in lieu of thinking. You do this as a preemptive mental clampdown that protects you from having to reassess your views or, even scarier, reconsider your identity. Now, this tendency to defensively clamp down is something that all people should be able to empathize with to an extent. We are all prone to feeling threatened and reacting defensively, on an automatic brain processing level, to cognitive dissonance. But even so there are still reasons that atheists find Christians’ and Muslims’ beliefs in hell, and mentions of it, so upsetting.

For one thing, while we can all understand being protective of one’s beliefs, it is upsetting to atheists that some Christians and Muslims want to believe in hell. Of all the beliefs to want so passionately to hold onto, this is among the very worst. This is about the least compassionate and most vile of doctrines and so why would anyone be agitated to rationalize it and insist it’s real? This is a doctrine that a being totally undetectable by the senses has the right to torture people for the crime of not seeing any reason to think it exists. It is a doctrine that finite wrongdoing deserves infinite punishment. It is a doctrine that a being who is perfect love punishes those who don’t love him as though he were a psychotically violently stalker and domestic abuser. And it’s so incredibly unrealistic as to be a childish and cartoonish threat that insults the intelligence as much as the conscience. So why defend the belief so adamantly?

I am sure many believers in hell vigorously defend it because they see it as of apiece with other beliefs they are more invested in—like the belief in heaven or in their sacred scriptures’ literal truth, etc. It may be that cognitively just accepting the wishful thinking parts of their religions without the uglier parts would involve facing up to the self-serving, too-good-to-be-true character of their implausible beliefs. They can tell that there are dimensions of their beliefs that are, at least to modern understanding, bizarre and fantastic. Part of making them feel real may be committing themselves to the parts that they don’t like as much as the ones they do. That makes it seem more compellingly like reality–which notoriously has both good parts and upsetting parts.

If they catch themselves denying the upsetting parts they may feel they are arbitrarily picking and choosing and the whole thing will unravel. Of course, they pick and choose what to believe anyway (and some believers are happy to throw away hell in the process), but it’s hard for them to do that as a self-aware emotional reaction based on their dislike of the concept of hell. Such would make too conscious for comfort the reality that their emotions are driving what they believe in ways that are arbitrary and not rationally defensible.

But what they seem blind to, even in that case, is that even if God was real and hell was just a harsh reality to accept, it is wrong emotionally to love such a being. Many of us atheists are clear on this. Were we to be convinced that the Abrahamic God was real and was like He is in the Bible and in traditional Christian and Islamic theologies, we still wouldn’t worship or be capable of sincerely loving Him any more than we would worship or love Josef Stalin or Ghadafi or Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler or any other sadistic tyrant who enforced obedience by torturing and murdering dissidents. Morally such a being is a monster.

Why does a Christian not only want to believe in such a being (and want this so much so that they are outright hostile to atheists simply for making counter-arguments and for existing as examples of people who do not believe) but also to love that being? Because that being is offering a blissful everlasting life? A lot of atheists find this to be a troublingly selfish motivation!

Imagine being offered that you can live forever if you go to the mansion of a sadistic torturer. He will provide you with endless amusements and happiness. He will also be endlessly torturing in the basement people who refuse his request. Would you go? Would you do so willingly? Would you go happily? Would you suck up to him and tell him he’s awesome and work yourself up into loving him? Would you make excuses for him and tell yourself he just must have his reasons? Would you get defensive on his behalf? Would you convince yourself he is the epitome of justice itself? Would you blame the people he tortures for using their free will to refuse him when they could have just loved him? To a lot of atheists, the fervent desire of Christians and Muslims not only to accept such an invitation to such a mansion but also to believe in such a mansion and to eagerly defend the morality of such an arrangement is twisted.

Other believers in hell are very squeamish about the concept. They hope God will find a way to save everyone. They stress, and take hope in, their own ignorance about what God will ultimately do. They do not really know who he will or won’t save or by what criteria in the final analysis. They do not know others’ hearts well enough to judge anyone. They don’t want to be judgmental. Etc., etc. But a lot of us atheists would wish they went even further. We wish they would reconsider calling a being who even made the threat part of his holy books and religions moral in the first place. I for one wish they would decide that even if they believe in him they’ll refuse to worship him if it turns out that he sends people to hell. Again: why are these people so desperate to believe in a being who is, at best, morally “uncertain” in this regard? Why do they want heaven if they know many people they would never want tortured will be tortured by him?

Some believers are anguished because of their belief in hell, precisely because they believe their loved one will suffer. Yet, even these believers choose to slavishly and worshipfully side with the cosmic dictator who threatens to inflict eternal torment on their beloved children, friends, parents, or spouse! What abdication of loyalty and conscience! They blame the future victim of this tyranny rather than the tyrant, rather than question for a legitimate second the actual justice of the arrangement.

When God told Abraham he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham desperately pleaded and bargained with him not to do it. He wasn’t the happy yes-man siding with his frightening god that so many contemporary Christians are. My recommendation to Christians, if it was good enough for Abraham to try to convince God to change his mind about Sodom and Gomorrah why don’t you put your energies into praying there is no hell instead of trying to rationalize why one would be fair for us non-believers?

Instead, you make excuses: “God is powerful and that makes God just no matter what he does” and “People who go to hell freely choose that fate”. Such go the rationalizations which abuse morality and language in a fell swoop.

But at least you are sincere! Right? You believe to the point of great sorrow to yourselves. And can’t we at least approve of your conscientious consistency by which you believe terrible things if you follow logically from your other beliefs? And if you proselytize us and desperately warn people to try to spare us hell—well, given your beliefs is that not more loving than letting your loved ones go to hell for fear of upsetting them on Earth? Aren’t those others who also believe in hell and yet don’t have the courage to do everything it takes to get their friends saved the truly poor friends? How could a true friend indifferently neglect their friend’s salvation for fear of upsetting them with the message they need to be saved?

To an extent, I appreciate that you are operating conscientiously and consistently within their beliefs. But I do not have to confuse this for a generally admirable conscientiousness. If you really are so damned worry about your friends you should be multiple times more scrupulous in figuring out the facts. You should research much more vigorously the arguments for evolution before calling it a lie and you would discover that the Bible’s ability to provide literal, special, divinely accurate truth is not only not at the level of infallibility–it’s at the level of colossal failure. You would also learn this if you showed as much conscientiousness about studying history or philosophy or other religions, etc. Sure, some of you might still believe in that case. But you would be far less likely to believe in the fantastic supernatural hell and far less likely to blithely adopt the crude morality of hellfire preachers.

You make choices about what to be conscientious about and what not to put any admirable effort into at all. I really can’t fault you for wanting what you really believe is best for me and trying to save me. But I really can fault you for being so lazy and shitty about figuring out what I really need.
I was once one of you. But I conscientiously did seek out the truth about what was true and what people really need. I found out I was wrong. I expect you to do the same if you’re honest, as I was. I fault you, intellectually or morally as the case may be when you fail to do so.

But don’t worry. I don’t think you or anyone else deserves (or will receive) everlasting torture for such culpable wrongness.

Bryson … once again … you are not in a position to be telling anyone what their final destination may be … because ;

1) That judgement lies solely in the hands of God the Father and the Son ..

and ..

2) You aint neither of them .

And in light of your hatred lies hypocrisy heresy etc .. you’re the last person to be telling anyone the Good News . Because Bryson … by your own life and words .. you contradict everything within the Good News of the Bible you claim to be trying to spread

What a thoughtful, but self-righteous screed. This guy basically just wants Christians and Muslims to drop everything and become atheists. I’m sorry, but human brains don’t work that way. People take time to figure out their beliefs and change tends to come slowly and incrementally, in ways that worm in that the people themselves don’t even realize. We all like to think that our every decision is rational, but honestly, most of our beliefs come from emotional places and complex psychology.

I’d like to forward this by saying that I no longer believe in Hell – at least in the common parlance. I do think that I’ve “been in Hell” many times in my life, so I can say that I believe in “hell” in a different sense, but the traditional notion…not anymore. So, you don’t have to go writing me off as “one of those dumb, unexamined people who believe you are going to Hell.”

For one… There was a point at which I still believed in a Hell that I stopped prosletyzing my friends. This wasn’t out of uncaring for my friends, this was because I realized that my trying to convince people to “escape the fire” wasn’t working and I figured “Why am I so arrogant that I think I can save them? God will speak to them in just the right way at just the right time in a way they need Him to – I’ll trust that.” Giving up, sure, but not out of uncaring. I think some consideration should be given to people in that position. (Hey, they may be on their way to Universalism, another faith, or even your preferred atheism… best not to call them horrible people and drive them off).

Second, the analogy of Hell-believing Christians and Muslims being given happiness in a rich man’s mansion as he tortures people in the basement: I hate to break it to you, but there are many people who would do just that. We’d all like to think that we aren’t one of them, but if those were the only two choices you were given by someone who you believed had total power over you, I expect that not very many people would take the “honorable” position of being tortured rather than being in happiness with the torture out of sight and out of mind. After all, many of us in the industrialized world do so every day when we try not to think about the sufferings of the people who make our products around the world or even of the poor in our own countries. I know for a fact that I tend to react with fear to homeless people when in cities and will tend to hide behind someone with me and ask “Do we have any money to give?” while fearing possible assault rather than being as generous as I should be (though I offered someone food once…). Whenever those commercials for Save the Children or Save the Animals comes on, being that I’m not in a position to make monthly gifts… I turn the channel… So, yes, I think many more of us than you are comfortable thinking about *would* choose the happiness offer while forgetting about the mansion’s victims – since people do so every damn day.

Again, I’m not in the evangelical position theologically anymore, but I can understand it. To me we all suck in some way or another.

– It has made me and others become an avid reader and supporter of Frank
Schaeffer.
– It turns people away from your church.
– It makes people become aware of the dangers of allowing your kind and the
likes of Roy Moore gaining power.
– It mobilizes people to ensure that the separation of church and state remains in
effect.

So by all means, do please keep telling everybody that they are going to hell, as we sure do need people to wake up to the threat that these Fundamentalist Christians pose to our freedom, and take action!

That being … you .. are only concerned with your end result … while completely ignoring your own culpability or relationship with God … ignoring your own personal sins … reading INTO the Bible what you want to see rather than reading It to find out what It says … thinking solely of yourself only … to the point of only trusting yourself ( the worst sinner you will ever know ) … to the exclusion of all others .. including the very neighbors Christ commands that you love

In otters words Bryson … for all practical purposes .. you are an Ayn Rand derived christian at best .. worshipping yourself first and foremost … the small metal gods you’ve placed your faith in ( guns Trump etc ) and then covering it over with the pretense and rhetoric of being a Christian .

e.g. To borrow Christs Words in the original language .. you by your own choice are

I don’t believe that many of the things the bible refers to as sins, really are sins. Such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and not believing that the bible is inerrant. Nor do I believe that these so-called offenses even begin to compare in severity with things such as rape, torture, and murder. As such, it is irrational to believe that a god of love, would equally punish someone for telling a lie, as someone raping, torturing, and them murdering another…

The simple fact is the likes of what Bryson is trying to represent has become the main reason why churches are emptying their pews left and right with many charities etc now distancing themselves from even the term evangelical / fundamental …

So let Bryson’s kind do Satan’s bidding emptying the churches … the simple fact is the Church is well over due for a good purge .. a helluva lot of refinement … and one seriously needed and overdue … Reformation ..

Your arguments are filled with fallacies:
Hasty generalization: “Evangelicals are so stupid and ignorant that they voted for Trump. So, clearly all evangelicals are stupid and ignorant.” (But we didn’t all vote for Trump, and many who did only did so, because they believed that Hillary Clinton is at least as evil and corrupt as Trump.)

Begging the question / Appealing to the stone: “Evangelicals are so stupid and evil that they are against abortion.” But this begs are few questions: When does personhood begin? Isn’t it appropriate to outlaw the murder of human persons? Do you think that what happened to Gianna Jessen was okay? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Wwgh7kdKM
You dismiss the anti-abortion claim as absurd without demonstrating that it is absurd.

Regarding certain evangelical beliefs about eschatology, there are many evangelicals who don’t have those beliefs. Many evangelicals do not believe that only 144,000 Jews will be saved. Many evangelicals do not believe that Jerusalem has to be in the Jews’ hands in order for Christ to return.
Regarding Roy Moore, there IS an assumption of innocence in this country until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe in the court of public opinion, it should take a whole lot more evidence than an accusation to decide that the accused is guilty.

From what I’ve read of him, Lewis was a theistic evolutionist (therefore, he wasn’t a Biblical literalist in regard to the Creation narrative). I also read some things about his view of “Hell” being quite a bit different than the average modern Evangelical Christian’s view of it. (If I’m not mistaken, his take was that it was more of a continual, chosen, self-created condition that one could possibly be saved from post-mortem. This is very different than the modern fundamentalist view that the doors to Heaven are slammed shut on you as soon as you did if you didn’t say the Magic Words in just the Right Way, or again ten times just in case). I suspect that if Lewis saw the modern state of America… he’d probably – after going “Pheh, those Colonials” – he’d probably be writing some screeds more or less similar to Frank’s. But… who knows?

I wouldn’t say that Evangelicals are necessarily stupid people. I used to be one for a brief time and I’m a smart person. No, my problem is different. I’m crazy. Crazy can be just as dangerous, perhaps even more so, the brain being a complex organ. I went for a long time with a particular mental illness that wasn’t pinned down until I was in my mid-twenties – one that leads to manic obsessions if not regulated… so… a smart person with a mania problem can be just as “dumb” as a conventionally stupid person in some ways, I know this from experience. I’ve since gotten some help, both in regards to balancing out my brain-chemistry in being with people who emotionally support me better than family and church were equipped to. I have fond memories of my old church – they were smart people and good people (to the point that, not knowing what they’re up to now, I hope they’re fleeing the “voting Republican like zombies” thing… I have faith that at least some of them have. I know that the thiestic evolutionist doctor I knew back then wasn’t entirely anti-abortion because he actually knew about the life-threatening medical issues that some women face – he told me once point blank that he disagreed with the church in that he’d recommend abortion to a pregnant woman with a bad heart condition). Anyway, it’s possible to rethink, to contemplate, to change. It’s also possible to retain faith but to not be stupid about it – to not be sold a political package that was never meant to be a part of the faith in the first place.

“apparently not understanding of their conservative-mindset.” – That phrase, “conservative-mindset” gave me a flashback to something I experienced in my adolescence. I grew up in Arizona in a rural area and, for a while was an avid reader of one of the local newspapers, including the opinions/political section and when I was a teenager, (late 1990s), the big political broo-ha-ha in the state was a measure regarding whether or not cockfighting should remain legal there. There was argument between the animal-welfare side and the side that did the sport and made money off it (roosters with good genes fetch high prices). I’ve never seen a cockfight myself, but did grow up around neighbors who kept their loud roosters chained up to little huts in the heat in their backyards.

One week, the local paper’s opinion section featured a pro-cockfighting person making an argument in favor of it based upon people’s “rural mindset.” The writer wasn’t a participant in the sport, herself, but was compassionate / mindful of the “rural mindset” of people who did.

The next week, one of my high school classmates on the against-side SLAMMED her. (Among descriptions of what actually happens in cockfighting, the cruelty thereof), the respondent succinctly pointed out the term “rural mindset” and said, point blank, “You just called a bunch of people stupid without realizing it, didn’t you?” – My classmate, being from the same area I was, pointed out that rural people could, in fact, listen to facts and weigh a decision rather than be slaves to a “rural mindset.”

In the end, the vote came down an Arizona joined the rest of the relatively civilized United States in outlawing the forcing of chickens to cut each other apart in pits for the amusement of drunkards. (Not that it doesn’t still go on illegally…I know for a fact that one of my neighbors whom I didn’t know personally kept roosters on chains in little huts in his backyard).

But, yeah… certain terms in politics that people call for “understanding” on read as code-words for “we think they’re kind of stupid” to me, even, sometimes especially from people who are defending them.

Humans have a need to believe in a power greater than themselves and that can be very good as it fosters humility.
Look at all the churches we build. People have lost their way when they forget where they came from. It’s easy to spew out hate speech. They are frightened. I wonder if anyone remembers the bracelets: WWJD. What would Jesus do? My Jesus would smoke some cigarettes and kill some bad guys. What would Jesus say about people who use his name in order to justify killing and hate. I think he may say, “Vengeance is mine now go be decent to your fellows.” These religious folks could channel their energies into bringing about the new paradigm of peace. It’s very sad but this is the way religion usurps any notion of what it means to be beings of spirit endowed with the power of creativity. It’s a story as old as time. I pray that the evangelicals can stop being fearful of things that they don’t understand like being homosexual, needing an abortion, and whatever else it is that they have become so very frightened of.